The superhero event book has a bad reputation surrounding it for two reasons. Firstly, from the outside, it feels like action figures punching each other – all the books you invested in suddenly pause for this event, and this is a problem that leads to the second reason – it’s expensive to keep up with. It’s another book (or a few, depending on the tie-ins you want to read and how important they are to the narrative) added to the pull list, which always puts a dent in the wallet.
While I don’t necessarily disagree with those claims, certainly not the second one, I don’t think the first one is always necessarily true. There are good event books that are as much blockbusters as they are thoughtful reflections of the artists. Marvel’s been on a good streak with this between Judgement Day and Blood Hunt. DC, however, has not. Dark Crisis and Beast World were pretty ‘meh’ to say the least, and based on that alone, it seems like Mark Waid and Dan Mora have a lot to prove with Absolute Power.
On a personal level though, that hill to climb is even steeper.
I like Mark Waid and Dan Mora’s Batman/Superman: World’s Finest well enough, but at a certain point, I got bored. They were perfectly fine, fun superhero stories that got the job done, with some of the best art in the business. Still, it didn’t feel like Waid had anything interesting to say about the core protagonists of that book, that being Batman, Superman and Robin (Dick Grayson). It felt like a celebration of them and their Silver Age stories more than anything, which is fine, but even that has its limits. At some point, you need to add some real meat for me to chew on.
Absolute Power, too, admittedly, didn’t hook me initially. Between the two paragraphs of reasoning above and the premise, I was at a loss. However, a book I am reading (The Flash) had story beats that were clearly going to get affected by the event, and another (Batman) was going to tie in altogether, so I thought I might as well keep up. Some of Waid’s interviews talking about the book sold me on the ordeal, but then Absolute Power: Ground Zero came out, and that took away the little promise I had in the book.
A little mini roller coaster so far! You may ask, “Well, how did you feel about Absolute Power #1 then?”
I liked it! If anything, Waid and Mora manage to really sell that sense of dread that permeates every single panel. It’s relentless in how it wants you to feel hopeless and wonder how the heroes will win this time. Not a moment is left for the reader to really breathe as things keep getting worse and worse for the guys we’re rooting for. On paper, this probably sounds like it’s a mess in terms of pacing – but for all the problems I have with World’s Finest, it’s clear that Waid and Mora are a well-oiled machine, and they’re operating in full force here. It’s paced perfectly, and Mora’s operating at his best here, with Alejandro Sánchez by his side, while Ariana Maher covers the lettering front.
To quote Batman in this issue, ”This is a blitzkrieg!”
It’s a great first issue that’s left me interested but also worried about what’s to come and whether it can hold me through it all. The elevator pitch I’d give for this event to someone who has read some DC would be that “it’s a modern take on Tower of Babel” (which was also written by Waid). Instead of Batman’s contingencies being used against his friends and allies, it’s the killer robot he designed to stop him in cohorts with the main villain, Amanda Waller – with a lot that places it in the modern day, such as how she uses misinformation via artificial intelligence generated videos to turn the general populace against the heroes.
That is interesting to me, but my problem lies with what seems to be the point of the event as presented by this first issue. To me, this event seems like it’s set out to prove why we need heroes, why we need heroism to prevail. That’s a problem because this is now the third event in a row from DC that feels the need to do this. The premise also is in a similar boat where the central villain, Amanda Waller feels like she’s been stripped of the depth that made her interesting in her original appearances, especially Ostrander’s Suicide Squad, so that you’re rooting by default for the heroes. When put into comparison with Tower of Babel, where it does present the moral dilemma of “Should Batman have made the contingency plans in the first place?” This falls short, especially when Wallers’ whole reason for stripping heroes of their powers is the fear of what if they go out of control someday.
Even so, I really liked the first issue of Absolute Power. Would I recommend someone to read this if they’ve been keeping up with other DC titles? Yeah, you should be reading this. To someone looking to pick up a good blockbuster story? I’m not sure yet, maybe sit and wait.
